In re Pavlinko's Estate
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
148 A.2d 528 (1959)
Vasil and Hellen Pavlinko, neither a native English speaker, had complementary wills drafted leaving each spouse's estate to the survivor and then to the same residuary beneficiary, Hellen's brother Elias Martin (Martin). When executing the wills, Vasil and Hellen mistakenly signed each other's documents, and neither their attorney nor his secretary, who witnessed and notarized the signatures, caught the error. After Vasil died in 1957 (Hellen having predeceased him in 1951 without her mis-signed will ever being offered for probate), Martin offered the document bearing Vasil's signature — which was actually Hellen's will, naming "my husband, Vasil Pavlinko" as primary beneficiary and Martin as contingent — for probate as Vasil's own will. The Register of Wills and the Orphan's Court both denied probate, and Martin appealed.
Whether a will may be enforced, or judicially revised into compliance, if it was validly executed in all respects except that it does not bear the testator's own signature as the Wills Act of 1947 requires.